My lovely commute.

Not a normal view from inside the car. Most of the time, things are flying
by at 80 or more. I left work in Temecula about 6pm and made it home to Escondido
around midnight; normally a 30 minute commute. This one was a toxic chemical
spill: Chromium which was part of a mixture of corrosive acid that ate through
a tanker-truck container. There are still barrels, dumpsters and police
tape at the site of the spill today. I drive by it on my way to work.

It's not the first time this stretch of I-15 has been shut down for lengthy
periods due to emergencies.

In August 2003, a suicidal 31-year-old man stopped on the freeway just south
of Deer Springs Road around 4 p.m., prompting the CHP to close the freeway.
The man eventually shot and killed himself. Traffic was backed up for four
hours. It was hard not to think of ways that I could have solve the problem
much quicker. Funny how violent people can get on the road.

In February 2003, police officers hunting for a fugitive stopped a pair of
sport utility vehicles south of Deer Springs Road, backing up traffic for
five miles.

A similar tie-up occurred in the same area in August 2000, when Lucias Macias
of San Diego refused to emerge from her van and held police at bay for almost
two hours.

I was there for all but that last one. And every time, the
police did a lousy job of letting anyone know what the problem was, how to
get around it, and what the detour path was.

At this one they had a helecopter yelling at people not
to drive on the sholder, then we we got up to an officer setting flares,
he was yelling at people to turn on their lights and go ahead and use the
sholder. The route they expected people to take was 9 or 10 miles out to
the east, then the same distance back into Escondido, but no one was telling
us that. I went out about 7 miles, said "this can't be right" and turned
around looking for another route. After driving all the way back to the I-15,
I pulled into a bar and ask directions. "nope, the only way is 9 miles out
there and then turn left at Valley Center and drive 9 miles back in"

So why wasn't the helecopter telling us that? He had time
to go on about driving on the sholder.

Ah well, time to go drive it again. If I die, I'm sure it
will be on that road. Freeways were invented by terrorists, did you know
that?http://www.massmind.org/other/911

ESCONDIDO -- A chemical spill on Interstate 15 turned yesterday evening's
commute into a nightmare -- and it may not be over by this morning.

Traffic was backed up for miles yesterday as the California Highway Patrol
shut down the freeway in both directions after a cloud of corrosive acid
began drifting from an 8,000-gallon tanker truck. Officials evacuated about
10 homes in the area east of where the truck stopped.

Authorities described the chemical mix as a corrosive cocktail of hydrochloric,
nitric and hydrofluoric acids with chromic acid mixed in.

"It's the most severe kind of chemical you could be exposed to," said Matt
Streck, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire
Protection. "The fumes are toxic to the lungs and could cause a severe reaction,
and toxic to the touch."

It also could be toxic to the North County commute this morning.

With hazmat crews needing to clean up the chemicals -- and officers trying
to determine just how long and how far the tank had leaked -- the freeway
northbound could remain closed until 8 a.m. or later, said CHP Officer Phil
Konstantin.

Southbound traffic will be diverted off I-15 at Gopher Canyon Road onto a
frontage road and returned to the freeway at Deer Springs Road.

Investigators were questioning the driver, who was identified as Terry Lynn
Eshleman, 62, of Bellflower.

Hazmat crews had to pump 3,000 gallons of the toxic acids to a different
truck.

Dave Bohorquez, driving north in his 1999 Volkswagen Beetle toward his home
in Murrieta, was among the first to see what was happening.

As the tanker truck cut in front of him on the freeway, he said, he saw thick
green smoke coming out of it.

Then the acid splashed onto his vehicle as he drove alongside the truck.
"The truck was just spewing it out the side, two feet wide," Bohorquez said.
"It was weird. Smoke coming out everywhere."

After Eshleman pulled over and stopped, Bohorquez said he asked him what
he was hauling. "He said it was just chromium, you could just go home and
wash it off," Bohorquez said.

There were no reports of anyone injured or hospitalized after being exposed
to the chemicals, but the CHP cleared the freeway for about a half-mile in
each direction just in case, Konstantin said.

The spill reduced the inland North County commute to chaos as northbound
traffic backed up from Deer Springs Road as far south as the Westfield
Shoppingtown North County Fair, a distance of about 15 miles.

The jam-up worsened as some commuters turned around and drove the wrong way
on the freeway, trying to get around the blockage. The CHP reported a large
number of near head-on collisions -- and an equal number of traffic tickets
handed out.

A 7-Eleven in a shopping center near the intersection of Centre City Parkway
and Country Club Lane became an unofficial aid station for northbound motorists
caught in the mess.

Jim and Kay Roberts of Redlands were studying a map spread out on the hood
of their truck, getting guidance from local residents about possible
detours.

The advice they got was to pick their way through Valley Center - - a possible
45-minute detour -- and connect with I-15 north of the spill.

Brian Riggs, a clerk at the 7-Eleven, was serving a flood of motorists who
had managed to escape the freeway. "They're mostly asking for directions
and stocking up on supplies for the road," Riggs said. He also was advising
motorists to go through Valley Center.

Terri Lezcano stopped at the convenience store on her way home to Las Vegas
after vacationing in San Diego with her two young children. She decided to
pull in at the 7-Eleven to get goodies for them, and a detour for herself.

"They can eat candy and I can concentrate," she said.

Three San Diego police officers who live in Temecula gave up trying to get
to work last night. One, whose shift started at 9 p.m., called the watch
commander at 10:30 p.m. saying he was abandoning his car on southbound I-15
and walking home, some 15 miles.

Once the freeway closed to the north of him, Tucson trucker Garry Chouinard,
hauling a Navy patrol boat to Portland, Ore., figured his only option was
to pull off the road and make the best of it.

"I can't go around. I can't go straight. I'm oversized, I'm long, I'm wide,
and I'm high," he said of his rig and his cargo. "Might as well turn on my
satellite dish, watch some TV and camp out for the night.

"I told them to wake me when it's over."

It's not the first time this stretch of I-15 has been shut down for lengthy
periods due to emergencies.

In August 2003, a suicidal 31-year-old man stopped on the freeway just south
of Deer Springs Road around 4 p.m., prompting the CHP to close the freeway.
The man eventually shot and killed himself. Traffic was backed up for four
hours.

In February 2003, police officers hunting for a fugitive stopped a pair of
sport utility vehicles south of Deer Springs Road, backing up traffic for
five miles.

A similar tie-up occurred in the same area in August 2000, when Lucias Macias
of San Diego refused to emerge from her van and held police at bay for almost
two hours.

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